Is it, is it Wicked?

"If you sign up for our Theatre Credit Card, in addition to access to our VIP lounge, you'll also get this free Wicked diary," said the sales woman, brandishing a 2007 diary... already 25% useless.

"In what way is it a Wicked diary?" asked I.

"It's green," said the sales woman. "And look, it's got a wicked map of London and a wicked wine guide."

"I'm teetotal," said I.

"But it's wicked," she said, and handed me the diary.

I signed up for the credit card (she was offering a free box of Maltesers, which frankly sealed the deal), and Fran and I were tagged with VIP bracelets and escorted to the VIP bar. This was a small, cupboardy room, totally empty and staffed by a woman who seemed grateful for the interruption. I swapped my £3 voucher for a tub of Maltesers and Fran and I made our exit. We had house seats at the performance, which were excellent, but we were surrounded by a German exchange trip who apparently had no idea of when they were invading our personal space.

Or indeed, Poland.

If anyone would like a green diary, already 25% useless, and apparently wicked in every way, please drop me an email.

Bullets of busy-ness

The ironic thing is I have loads of time to write my Plog when nothing is happening in my life. When I am busy, I have no time at all. So, some things that happened that all have highly witty anecdotes attached to them. I may return and expand, depending on whether or not anything more interesting happens this weekend.

• Yesterday was the Plog's 1st birthday! Happy birthday, Plog!
• In celebration of the Plog's birthday (OK it had absolutely nothing to do with it) I saw "Wicked" at the theatre. It was wicked. And there are several amusing anecdotes that go with it.
• Today I spent the afternoon in St Albans finding out about team-building activities like laser pigeon shooting and bombing around on quad bikes. For most people this would be a jolly. Know how many "pigeons" I shot out of a possible 20? Hmm? Zero. I maintained this was on the grounds of animal rights / pacifism, but I'm not sure anyone believed me. I got stuck in terrible traffic on the way home and sulked all down the M1.
• I had a gig tonight, at which 5 girls I hadn't seen since school came to. It was a really nice surprise to see them. Future anecdotes may follow.
• It is nearly midnight and I have to tidy up before the cleaner comes tomorrow. I am very, very tired.

Friday in about five minutes. Fab.

Walking nine to five

My iPod Nano was fully charged, my smart shoes were in my work bag, my satchel was thrown over my shoulders in a nifty-yet-practical fashion... Today saw the first Walking to Work of the year.





When I first moved to London, I lived in Dalston. To this day, I'm not exactly sure why Dalston was chosen. I didn't really know London that well, knew I'd be working in the City, guessed Dalston might not be that far away, and saw a flat with a parking space that would be suitable. I think I only actually saw the one flat. Which may go someway to explain how I ended up paying nearly £1000 per month for a one-bedroomed flat in Hackney. You learn from experience.





However, come spring, I realised that a massive perk of living in Dalston was that work was actually walkable, and that starting the day with some cheesy music and a bit of exercise was so much nicer than being crammed against a sweaty bloke's armpit (although that too is not without its charms). So when I looked to move at the end of the rental period, finding an area that was walkable to work was a major consideration.





I have Erica to thank for suggesting Bethnal Green - not only walkable to Liverpool Street, but with a tube stop literally seconds from where we used to live, and the best comedy club in London.





Of course, then I took a role over at Chancery Lane, meaning that walking was no longer practical. But now I'm based near Liverpool Street again, and this morning it took me about half an hour to walk to the office. Yes, I missed the sweaty man's armpit, and London's random assortment of "colourful" characters, but it was a nice start to the day.





When I started this anecdote, I think I had a clever and funny ending prepared, but I think I've forgotten it along the way. Sorry.

Anyway, I got a cab home. Shut up.

Meeting in the middle

I worked out last week that nearly 60% of my weekly diet is "meeting food". By which I mean the nature of my job causes me to eat work / hotel / conference centre sandwiches and nibbles for 60% of my calorie intake.

This means:

- I have already had a lifetime's supply of deep-fried mozzerella with chilli
- I eat much more watermelon than the average 27 year-old
- I no longer enjoy drinking orange juice
- I have discovered a strange affinity for brie-from-boredom. I would never eat brie in a non-bored state
- I can spot tomato (ugh) in a sandwich at twenty paces

Why oh why oh why don't they just ship in a packet of Quavers, a jacket with cheese and a Cadbury's Creme Egg to finish?

When I am in charge of the world, everything will run much more smoothly.

Eschewing the fat

I feel a little bit cheated that I've had a whole hour stolen from my weekend. My weekend is 48 hours long, normally, but owing to the clocks going forward, this weekend it was only 47 hours. This is a whopping 2.1% of my weekend that I'm not going to get back (until October). Can I claim compensation? No. And when I suggested it to my manager that I ought to get a 2% overtime bonus this month, he said something about a P45. Interesting...

Still, the hour less in bed is so, so worth it to have light evenings, meaning I can eschew public transport and start walking to and from work. I am going to start eschewing more things, because I really, really like the word.

So, now I have to come up with a list of things to eschew. I would like help with this, so if you've got any good suggestions, please do post them as comments. So far I've got:

• The Olympics. (SO eschewed. Planning on renting out my flat, cunningly close to the Olympic Village and sodding off round the world again)
• Any national sporting event
• Any local sporting event
• Any televised sporting event (that should cover it)
• Anything with Billie Piper in. She is eschewed. Let that be a lesson to you, Billie. What's that Billie? Why have I eschewed you? Because I want to, because I want to.
• Anything with Drew Barrymore in. Unless I have a cheese grater handy for her pudgy face.
• Global warming. SO 2006. It is eschewed.

Anything else we need to eschew?

Forget-me-not

I have been very busy, and have been out almost every evening this week. However, this is no excuse for poor Plogging, and so I must apologise to my readers. Even if most of you do find me by typing in "Erica's Wanking Club" to Google. And yes, I do realise that by saying "Erica's Wanking Club" again, I increase the chances of it being ranked higher on Google. Blame my good friend Erica. And her wanking club.

So, what have I been up to? Well, lots of things which were lots of fun for me, but would probably bore you stupid to hear about them. So let's pick an anecdote and go with that. OK...

So I was at a work office in a suburb of Surrey which shall remain unnamed. The receptionist was called Jane. I asked her if she'd order me a taxi for an hour's time. She said she would. She was very nice.

I took a seat, whilst waiting for my appointment, and I heard the following conversation between the two receptionists:

Jane: Oh, you know what? I forgot to order the taxi for Steve! For three! I forgot! I'll do it now.

Other receptionist: Good idea. Oh no! It's Friday! I forgot! I've got to put the stationery request in! I forgot!

Jane: Oh look, Sally's left her sweets here. She must have forgotten them.

Other receptionist: Oh yes. Let's have one. Oh! I forgot! Jess is coming this weekend.

Do you think they're putting rohypnol in the water? Still, my taxi was there an hour later, and all was forgotten.

Camp coffee

Wednesday at work is Coffee Experimentation Day. My colleague and I take it in turns to buy each other the gayest coffee we can convince Starbucks to make.

Runners-up to date:

- Latte with a shot of Irish Creme
- Egg nog latte
- Caramel Macchiato
- Mocha with a shot of coconut and topped with cream

Today's winner:

- Tall skinny latte with a shot of raspberry syrup.

Next time I will ask them to put a pink cocktail umbrella in the top.

Eggcellent

This was in the news today:


70,000 Cadbury eggs lorry stolen

A lorry containing Cadbury chocolate eggs worth an estimated £70,000 has been stolen in Staffordshire. Thieves tricked the driver, who had stopped near Lichfield en route from the Birmingham factory to Yorkshire, saying the van was shedding its load. When he got out of his cab to investigate, the men jumped in and made off with the eggs on Monday.

But they may end up eating the snacks themselves, as a Cadbury spokesman said the eggs would be hard to sell. "The criminal fraternity are pretty thick, it's not likely that a reputable retailer will buy them and it's likely that they will turn up at car boot sales in the area," he added.

I would just like to point out a) I have an alibi for Monday and b) I'm off to Birmingham for some car boot sales.

Food poisoning

Apparently in Spain, in hospital they don't feed you. Instead, if you have family, your family are expected to bring food to you. This is quite sensible in most cases because a) it keeps the hospital costs down b) you're likely to get something you actually want to eat and c) it's the sort of food your system is going to be used to, so you'll probably digest it more easily.

However, I am very glad that I don't live in Spain and/or frequent Spanish hospitals. My mum is a rubbish cook. I would be dead within minutes.

"Here Laura, I've brought you some lovely food. I've made it specially for you," Mrs Nunn would cajole.

"What is it?" I would ask, enfeebled.

"Well, it's spaghetti but instead of a nice rich tomato sauce, I've poured some tuna juice in and sprinkled porridge oats on top. They're good for you."

"Oh. Right, thank you," I would say, not wanting to be ungrateful. "Did you bring any dessert?"

"Yes," Mrs Nunn would say proudly. "I want you to eat all of it as I made it specially for you."

"What is it?" I would ask, perking up a little at the potential for chocolate.

"It's fruit salad. But we ran out of fruit, so I popped in a bit of cucumber and some tinned avocados we had from the Harvest Festival last year. Try it. It's nice."

If nothing else, I suppose, it would be an incentive to get better. How to reduce NHS costs within minutes: get Mrs Nunn to cook for them. I guarantee that within a day, people will either have discharged themselves... or else will have dropped dead.

Comedy, Corsa, Citchen. (Sorry)

Poop. That is the sound of me being pooped. Poop.

So, Jack (the brother) and I went out last night to the best comedy club in London, which is conveniently situated approximately five minutes' walk from my flat http://www.backyardcomedyclub.moonfruit.com/. Anyone who says that's the main reason for me moving to Bethnal Green is being ridiculous. What sort of person moves to an area because there's a good comedy club in the neighbourhood? Hmm? I hadn't been to the club for a little while, actually and we had a fantastic evening. Some of my favourite acts were on the bill - Micky Flanagan and Rhod Gilbert, along with Marcus Birdman, whom I hadn't seen before, but who I liked a lot. Lee was MC-ing, so it was pretty much a guaranteed good night out from the start.

Late-ish night though, followed by an early-ish morning as a man came to measure my kitchen. Anyone who has ever attempted the Herculean task of getting Jack from his bed before about 3 in the afternoon will appreciate Mein Kampf this morning in raising the brother prior to the kitchen guy arriving.

Then, off to Wapping to the Vauxhall garage as the Corsa was recalled because of a possible fault. Then Sainsbury's, then off to Dagenham, with newly-checked Corsa, to choose a brand new kitchen. It is shiny.

I have had an extremely grown-up day.

I am now going to throw some water-bombs at old ladies from my upstairs windows.

I have a gig this evening - haven't done one for ages. Nasty feeling I've completely forgotten my entire set. We shall see. As shall Wimbledon.

Oh brother, where art thou?

So, the youngest member of the Nunn family is gracing the capital with his presence this weekend. The capital is cowering.

Still, we have an action-packed weekend lined up. Well, I do anyway. The youngster Nunnster can tag along and do what he's told. That is the prerogative of a big sister.

Other things that should be automatic birthrights (but aren't nearly often enough):

- The oldest child should always, and by that I mean always get the front seat in the car. The oldest should not be forced to take turns. It is demeaning. This rule holds fast even when the younger child is in their twenties. Deal with it.

- The oldest child also gets first dibs on food when at the parents' house. This is a natural selection thing. Do not mess with nature's order. Strategic food buying is also imperative. A clever older sibling (like me) will intentionally purchase Hula Hoops, knowing that the younger sibling (like Jack) does not like Hula Hoops, thus meaning the eldest child gets to eat all the crisps.

- The youngest child gets automatically blamed for any broken electrical equipment.

- It is a truth universally acknowledged that the youngest child, in posession of a decent watch, will still always be late. For everything. No-one knows why.

Taxing

I get quite a few cabs for work. This is not me boasting. Far from it. This means that my job (which often involves training people) means I have to lug large containers full of stuff from office to office. And when there's too much stuff to reasonably carry on rush-hour public transport, I tend to jump in a cab.

This is fine.

Except every black cab driver in the world seems to have originated from the East End. Again this is fine, I have no issue with this. Bear with me. The part where it starts to niggle is how at 7 a.m. every single time, on picking me up from the East End the cab driver feels it necessary to inform me about my local history. These points always include:

- How the area has changed

- Ooh, isn't there a lot of immigrants these days?

- How that building over there used to be the fire station

- Did I know the Kray twins used to live there? (of course I fucking did. I've lived here for four years and had every sodding taxi driver in the world point it out to me)

- Have you ever had a beigel from that shop?

- That used to be a supermarket, you know (how exciting)

- Cockneys was a good lot. Not many of them left nowadays. They was a good lot. Rough but good. (Apart from the bastard who lives in the flat underneath me. He's just a noisy git. But I suppose there are always exceptions).

I have to pretend to be interested every single time. Good news is though, I now do a mean tour of Bethnal Green for visitors and know some really useless facts that I can bore anyone with if they outstay their welcome.

(My little brother is visiting this weekend. I am preparing the fact sheet with quiz questions as we speak.)

There's no place like home

A week or so back marked my second anniversary of living in my flat. Unremarkable in itself, certainly, but I realised it's actually the longest I've been in any one property since I left home for university in 1999. I did spend two years in the same room in my university hall of residence*, but as I went home for vacations (and there were more of those than term-time really) then I'm not sure that counts.

Either way, I've now been here officially longer than anywhere else in my entire adult life. And if you add up all the time I've been in Bethnal Green, well, that's heading for four years, and if we include time in London altogether... it's nearly five years now. Bethnal Green feels like home. London feels like home.

I do get confused occasionally though. In my mobile phone's address book, "Home" rings my parents' house. On my sat nav system, "Home" guides me back to Bethnal Green. This discrepancy, once or twice, has led to hilarious consequences of Jessica (understandably) sending me round in circles, trying to take me back to my starting place (Bethnal Green) when I actually want to go to Loughborough.

This is neither clever nor funny. But it is true. If I were always to be clever and funny, I might start charging.

* I don't mean I never left the room. I did go out. Sometimes. But to be honest, there were a lot of stairs, and I had a computer and everything in my room, so there really wasn't a lot of point. And it was always raining anyway.

A memory

The year was 2001. The train was going from Bristol Temple Meads to London Waterloo via Salisbury (don't ask). I had taken an early train because it was cheaper (I was a student) and because I hoped to sleep en route.

The gods had decided this wouldn't be the case. A middle-aged, bossy-looking woman came and sat across the aisle from me. "I'm off to Moorfields Eye Hospital," she announced.

I was polite. "Oh."

"I'm going to walk it. It's a long way from Waterloo, but I'm going to walk it."

Now, not living in London at the time, it's only more recently that I can appreciate exactly how long that walk is. It is a Very Long Walk. She continued.

"My daughter used to live in London but she lives in Australia now." I was beginning to see why.

The lady took out a thermos flask and poured herself a hot drink. "I only drink soya milk. Do you?"

"No," said I. "I have my tea with just a splash of semi-skimmed milk."

"You don't drink very strong tea, do you?" she asked.

"Yes, yes I do."

She paused, looked at me meaningfully and said, "Strong tea, slow death."

Good.

Trials and tribulations

Oh ho ho ho. I have man-flu, yes indeed. Of course, not being a man, I did struggle into work today and sneezed over as many colleagues I could find.

I have given up on echinacea. This man-flu is too strong for herbal. We're going paracetamol.

My man-flu is so bad I...

- Missed book club (Kafka's "The Trial" - silly shit, don't bother)
- Got through a whole box of tissues in one afternoon
- Didn't fancy any chocolate

But, I'm running a workshop tomorrow, and I'm out seeing some comedy tomorrow night, so the evil man-flu must be defeated by approximately 10.30 tomorrow morning. Mind over matter.

In the meantime, picture if you will, me sitting on my sofa with a tissue shoved up each nostril. I am nothing if not glamorous and attractive.

I am nothing.

Truly Surrey

Talk about while the cat's away! One day I was away from Plogging. One day! And look what you did. Eleven comments... about Marmite.

Now go away and think about what you've done.

I have been in Reigate and Redhill. They are in Surrey. I have very few Surrey-related anecdotes. I will work on this.

In the meantime, I have the female equivalent of man-flu (a very slight cold) so am getting an early night.

Anyone else want to make any dodgy comments about salty foodstuffs?

Best thing since sliced bread

Marmite. You either love it or hate it, right? Not me. I think it's OK. I have a jar of it in the cupboard that's been there for a year or so, and occasionally I'll have some on toast. Most of the time I don't think about it.

I am ambivalent towards Marmite. I am now quite worried that I may be generally quite an ambivalent person.

I think wars are mostly wrong... but can kind of see how the Iraq thing happened. But not enough to protest either way.

I don't believe in fox-hunting... but I can see that worse things happen in the world, so I'm not going to spend my time arguing either for or against it.

The Congestion Charge annoys me... but I can see why it was put in place, and environmentally I imagine it has helped to keep cars from the centre of London during the day.

I think hurting animals is bad... but I'm hypocritical enough to continue eating meat - even though I can't bring myself to kill a mosquito. (Not that a mosquito would make a particularly satisfying meal. Although my mum always says I eat like a bird, so perhaps it would and I should give it a try. Separate issue perhaps.)

One of these days I really ought to try and get some strong opinions on something. Then again... I'm not sure.

Chavtastic

I know it's cliched to take a pop at people from Essex, but today's sojourn to Lakeside proved for me that cliches can be based on truisms.

Moronised by the shiny-shiny things, armies of fat people hypnotically lolled their way directly into my path. They moved slower than normal Londoners, weighed down, no doubt, by their chunky Argos jewellery. Mothers with at least six children pushed buggies into my heels. Enormous bleached whale-women made some semblance of queueing at Krispy Kreme for a box of twelve doughnuts.

Primark was a mecca for these people, who would occasional speak in poetic and dulcit tones, "Oi, Chardonnaiiii. Donchoo gow off on yer ahhn. Fuckin' little bleeder. Dwayne - where's my fuckin' fags?"

I left shortly before the inevitable lunch stampede started. You don't need to be anywhere near Burger King when there are that many larger people around.

Letting things slide

Last night I went to the Tate Modern. People who know me will probably be a bit surprised by this. This is because I think most modern art (and a lot of art in general) is a pile of pretentious pants. The only thing I like about the Tate Modern really, is the view across London you get from the top floor. That's art. Despite the fact that I can wax lyrical about novels, plays, poetry - seeing all kinds of themes and references, visual art usually leaves me cold.

However, a friend had suggested we go... and so I went.

They have big slides there at the moment (see picture). The big slides are scary. Really scary. They go from the fifth floor of the old power station, right to the ground. I went on the slides. People who know me - again - will be shocked. My role in life is to be the person who holds other people's coats at Alton Towers. I am not a slidey person.

But I was a big brave girl, and I went on even the biggest slide. And it was actually quite good fun, except the really big slide was a bit rattley and I felt all my bones were shaken up by the end of it. You've got to be careful at my age.

Next on the list, bungee jumping.

Only joking. Parachuting's first.

Hugh-ge disappointment

So, I saw Music and Lyrics. I was all on my own in a completely deserted cinema. I found out just a few minutes later why the cinema was deserted. Everyone had better taste than me.

For a romantic comedy, it is surprisingly low on a) comedy and b) romance. Also, I didn't get to see Hugh Grant's bottom, which is always a disappointment. Plus, Drew Barrymore's chubby gob still needs attacking with a cheese grater.

I think I might be over Hugh. But I'm not ready to talk about it yet.